If you search the word of God, you will find out things that God really delights in, and desires. When you begin to discover what He desires, and delights in, you begin to live a life radically different to everyone around you. Most people thought that God was happy if they turned up three times a year to the celebrations; and went to church every week. He said: that's not the picture! God is after something different! He's after passionate worshippers who will love Him, and advance His kingdom.
He discovered what God likes and dislikes. Have you discovered that? Have you taken time to find out what God really switches on about? When you do, you begin to be a person after the heart of God, and you can't get it all off a platform. You've got to actually discover it, through time in the word of God, and time in prayer, and worshipping Him, and waiting on Him - and then He begins to share things with you. The Lord shared some things with me and it's like: Oh, wow, stunning!
This is what David was like. He was a man who spent a lot of time pursuing God, when no one was looking, and he did that up to the age of 17. When David was 17, he was encountering God, and discovering things about God, that no one else knew in his day. He continued all his life, pursuing what God is like, and then he totally reformed everything religious in the nation.
I believe we're in a season, and an hour, when there's a massive reformation taking place in the way people who are connected to God think about God, think about church, think about what they're called to do. Or you're a part of a group of people that just carries on - I'm happy to just do my little bit, and go on? I want to be at the cutting edge of what God is doing in the hour today, because David lived there.
The Bible says: David was a man after the heart of God; willing to do what God wanted him to do, in his day. Secondly, he served his generation, by the will of God. He didn't serve his generation by continuing what they did in Moses' day; he served his generation by discovering what God wanted him to do, in the day he lived, and then he passionately pursued doing that.
That has not changed! We're in the 21st Century, and God is still looking for people who will have a heart to know Him. You might say: I don't know, it all seems so hard… No, it isn't hard! You're in a church where there are many, many gifted people, who can help you connect with God, and begin to grow in your relationship with God; but ultimately, it's got to be your desire. You must want to. He's wanting you to.
He's got things to share with you, and out of that flows the fulfilment of destiny. David served his generation by the will of God. Destiny means I discover what God has called me, personally, to do - what is my assignment in life? What should I be doing with my life? What has God called me to do? If you can't answer that, then you're in trouble, you're drifting; but David discovered what God wanted him to do in his day. God had many things for him to do. He totally reformed the whole way worship was done. Even to this day, there are a lot of people who get upset about shouting, laughing, jumping, leaping, crying, weeping… expressiveness, in the church.
But David saw that, hundreds and hundreds of years before anyone else did. How? He touched the heart of God, and found what God really likes. God likes extravagant worship! He likes expressive, passionate people. He loves that! If He loves that, then I want to be that kind of person; and he discovered in his day, what he should do. In his day he was called to be a reformer. Now you may not reform the world but there's certainly some part of this community God wants you to make a difference with your life.